Energy Audit Army is Well Funded and on the March : Firms Starting and Accelerating like a 16 year Old with Porsche

No sooner had I posted on Green BIM, and also flogging the sustainable retrofit business model, that friends and colleagues start bringing up firms specializing in energy audits. Most of these firms combine the audits with consulting to provide sustainability options i.e. savings through energy efficiency. The more you dig you’ll see that energy audits are becoming common place and even mandatory in places. The Green Energy Act passed in Ontario, Canada mandates a seller preform and energy audit on their home. The city Austin now mandates it. You get the picture, regardless if you think it is a good practice, it is also being legislated into existence. Not only that there are rebates and tax credits available for implementing retrofits. Good business. So let me again hammer this home in bullet point format:

Mandated in select areas but growing

Audit Funded by Stimulus and Grants

Retrofits Paid for by Tax Rebates

Give me one or a dozen at that price.

Recurve, ” a San Francisco-based provider of software and services for the home performance industry, today announced that it has secured an $8 million Series B round of financing. New investor Lowe’s Companies, Inc. (NYSE: LOW) joins existing investors RockPort Capital Partners and Shasta Ventures in the financing.” Provides not only the energy audit and recommendations and not wanting to share much pie can do the retrofits themselves as well.

Neststepliving, a Needham, MA announced this summer a “$2.6 million first close of their Series B financing round. The financing was led by local green entrepreneur John McQuillan, President & CEO of Triumvirate Environmental, who was joined by other new investors and returning Series A investors including Black Coral Capital and the Clean Energy Venture Group.”

And these are companies that people just mentioned to me in the last couple of days and as stated on the NextStepLiving website, Most Massachsuetts Homeowners are eligible for free home energy assessment and generous weatherization rebates up to 85% of the cost of the work. Regardless of who’s picking up the tab and maybe it’s just a lead generation tool, but free? Can’t lower the hurdle any more than that, and then coupled with rebates to do the work, well, get on that train.

Appogee Interactive, Enercom , and Microsoft’s HOHM Beta, are all providing tools for analyzing your home. Why? It leads to business, or as my dad always says, “follow the money”. And the smart money is in sustainable retrofits and energy audits.